What can we do to prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases from becoming epidemics or pandemic? In this course, you’ll learn the facts about infectious diseases and medical responses. We'll focus on the public health laws and policies that provide the framework for effective prevention, like quarantine laws, drug development policies, and bioterrorism and biodefense.

Welcome to Week One! This week’s lesson immerses you in the world of epidemics, pandemics and outbreaks and our efforts to prevent and respond to them. It will prepare you to engage in depth with the lessons that are coming up in weeks 2-4: "Understanding Infectious Diseases," "Global Health Security," and "Local Countermeasures."

Enseigné par

Elena A. Baylis

Associate Professor

Elizabeth Ferrell Bjerke, JD

Director, JD/MPH Program

Amesh A. Adalja, MD, FACP

Senior Associate

Ryan Morhard

Guest Instructor

Transcription

The Biological Weapons Convention, is the first and the first treaty that actually took a whole class of weapons off the table. Since 1969, it has the norm that we do not have biological weapons development. And even though there are some countries that probably are violating the BWC as it's called. They don't they don't brag about it, and there are these sort of challenges that to the BWC that you see in the nuclear realm. It really doesn't prohibit the development of biological research or biotechnologies. It really is focused on the use of any of those technologies for hostel purposes or to develop weapons, or to develop distribution systems for weapons. So it really is focused on the weaponization aspect, not on on any sort of research. So, that has been very good for biotechnology.